Night and Silence
'Night and Silence '(2018) is the twelfth book in the October Daye series by Seanan McGuire. Author's Description Things are not okay. In the aftermath of Amandine's latest betrayal, October "Toby" Daye's fragile self-made family is on the verge of coming apart at the seams. Jazz can't sleep, Sylvester doesn't want to see her, and worst of all, Tybalt has withdrawn from her entirely, retreating into the Court of Cats as he tries to recover from his abduction. Toby is floundering, unable to help the people she loves most heal. She needs a distraction. She needs a quest. What she doesn't need is the abduction of her estranged human daughter, Gillian. What she doesn't need is to be accused of kidnapping her own child by her ex-boyfriend and his new wife, who seems to be harboring secrets of her own. There's no question of whether she'll take the case. The only question is whether she's emotionally prepared to survive it. Signs of Faerie's involvement are everywhere, and it's going to take all Toby's nerve and all her allies to get her through this web of old secrets, older hatreds, and new deceits. If she can't find Gillian before time runs out, her own child will pay the price. Two questions remain: Who in Faerie remembered Gillian existed? And what do they stand to gain? No matter how this ends, Toby's life will never be the same. Full Plot Summary The book starts with October Daye, Quentin Sollys, and Danny MacReady hunting down a family of flying hedgehog-like fae creatures called arkan sonney. Danny prods Toby to talk about her feelings and the issues with her relationship with Tybalt. They capture all nine of the arkan sonney, and deliver them to a prepared menagerie in Muir Woods, escorted by the local Pixie flock and greeted by Lowri. Nolan Windermere greets the group at the menagerie, and he and Arden Windermere assist with the transfer of the beasts into the enclosure. Danny takes Quentin and Toby home to sleep. May Daye greets Toby in the kitchen, and agrees to go sleep when prompted about Jazz's condition. Toby makes it to bed just before dawn. She dreams of Tybalt, re-living the instance where he'd left her. Awake at 9am, Toby realizes somebody is pounding on the front door; Cliff Marks accompanied by Miranda, looking for Gillian Marks. Miranda accuses Toby of having taken Gillian, and Cliff pleads for Toby's help in finding her. Toby wonders how they knew to find her at her new address, and Cliff admits they hired a PI to find it, continuing research on Toby in preparation for a possible custody battle. He reveals that Gillian was taken from her car, at her residence on Berkeley campus, and there was blood at the scene. Toby exchanges phone numbers with him, then promptly kicks him and Miranda out. Toby wakes May, who insists on coming along on the rescue effort, as her memories contain mothering Gillian from when she'd split off from Toby. Toby then wakes Quentin, and by extension Raj, who had slept over for the night. Raj leaves for the Court of Cats to update Tybalt on the situation. May, Toby, and Quentin embrace for comfort. Toby asks Arden to borrow Madden for his tracking skills. He meets them at Berkley and presents a pre-paid parking slip, provided by Arden. Madden shifts to dog form, and May spins together a "Working Dog" vest for him to wear. Toby uses an illusion to get past the crime scene border at Gillian's residence. Toby tries to scent the air for traces of magic, but is overwhelmed by the huge number of magical signatures left over from all the fae students playing Faerie Bride, on top of the mortal scents. They continue forward to Gillian's room and meet Jocelyn Lewis, Gillian's roommate, who is apparently a fan of Toby's work, and says her mother is a Gwragen changeling. Toby tries to interrogate Jocelyn, ends up upsetting her, and Quentin steps in to help, convincing Jocelyn to show them what she knows about Gillian's habits. Jocelyn runs off to grab her coat, leaving the gang alone to investigate the room without her. Toby finds a small sachet of herbs in the bottom of one of Gillian's drawers. The sachet is a marshwater charm, and seems to be constructed to repel Fae and/or cause an allergic reaction in them. Toby wraps the sachet in foil and sticks it in Quentin's pocket, then proceeds to find more of them in Gillian's other drawers before Jocelyn returns. May stays behind to continue to search the room while Toby, Quentin, and Madden follow Jocelyn to the scene of Gillian's car. Jocelyn continues to be amazed by Toby's magic, and mentions that her mother used to know Toby at a younger age. Toby asks if Jocelyn had allergies, and her suspicion is confirmed when Jocelyn says she didn't have them until she came to campus. Jocelyn leads them to Wheeler Hall, where Gillian's car is parked, and expects Toby to thank her. Toby berates Jocelyn for trying to trap her into debt or fealty. Bridget Ames comes to the rescue and shoos Jocelyn away. Toby reveals to Bridget that the missing student, Gillian, is her daughter. Bridget reveals that Gillian took her Folklore course this year and was a good student, and offers her help on the case. Toby ducks into a creekbed to cast a particularly powerful Don't-look-here spell, then sneaks onto the crime scene of the car to investigate more closely. She finds shards of glass on the ground near the car, and sniffs out a few with blood on them. She backs away from the car and into one of the campus police, who pursues her back to the creekbed, where she alters her human disguise in order to be unfamiliar to the cop. May rejoins the group, ridicules Toby's new temporary hair color, and gathers Madden from a gaggle of human students who had gathered around him. Bridget escorts the group to her office, where May informs them that she found more sachets, charms, and trinkets in Gillian's room. Quentin brings forth the sample sachet to show to Bridget, and the gang breaks out in a respiratory/allergic reaction. Toby scents the bag to tell Bridget what ingredients are in the sachet: Dill, gorse, St. John's wort, fennel, king-cup (marsh marigold), and Scott's kale. Bridget tucks the bag in her desk to get it away from her guests. Toby takes the bloody glass from the crime scene out of her pocket, and rides the blood, experiencing Gillian's memories of the abduction; there was a faint scent of cinnamon, which had also been present in the mixture of scents in Gillian's residence. Bridget agrees to take the sachet to Walther Davies and Madden confirms that he has Gillian's scent and can now follow the trail from her car. Doing just that, Madden leads the way to the edge of campus and beyond, with Toby, May, and Quentin following along behind him under a Don't-look-here. The trail leads to a blank wall between two buildings, which stands out in its blankness- no graffiti. Toby recognizes it as an illusion and uses Blood Magic to force her way past it and hold the way open for everyone else. Beyond the wall lies a courtyard hidden in the mortal world, and full of fae cultivations, a small house, and a miniature "Baba Yaga" hut on chicken legs, the size of a child's playground house. The existence of this courtyard is highly disconcerting to the group, none of whom have any memory or knowledge of it. Toby finds Gillian's clothing in the nest of the hut, deliberately woven in as though placed there on purpose, leading Toby to believe that Gillian had never been in the courtyard. While scenting for any clues (and finding Jocelyn's scent on the clothing), Madden mentions that he'll have to tell Arden about the courtyard, which reminds Toby to tell Shade (through a phone-call to Raj) that the courtyard exists in the bounds of her court. Toby smells the scent of cinnamon again in the courtyard as she investigates the house, picking the lock to get in. Both Shade and Arden (with Nolan) arrive in the courtyard, acknowledge their pre-existing knowledge of the existence of such a place, and urge everyone out of it, stating that they aren't supposed to be there. Arden and Nolan leave quickly. Shade reassures Toby that Tybalt didn't know about the courtyard agreement, and asks after his well-being, then offers the help of her cats if needed, then departs as well. The group returns to the crime scene, where Gillian's car is now gone. Madden finds a second trail at the car, and Toby's phone rings, compromising the integrity of the group's Don't-look-here. Walther, on the phone, beckons them to his office, where he gives them an antidote against the lasting effects of the sachets from Gillian's room. Walther confirms that the sachets were an old, powerful type of marshwater charm, and that they were designed to repel the fae and incapacitate their senses; no-one fae could have made them. Toby wracks her brain for a suspect as to who might have done this, and figures that Jocelyn may have hired a human to do it, and greased the palms of Gillian's residence in order to be placed as her roommate. She and Quentin go to confront Jocelyn, only to find her gone and moved out, with a note left for Toby, instructing her to find Jocelyn in 'the place you gave away'. Meanwhile, May and Madden had tracked the second trail, and their call pulls Toby and Quentin to another location in a hurry. They end up at a house, which is soaked in a spell so powerful that it makes it difficult to look at directly, and impossible to approach. Toby uses blood to break through again, this time unable to bring anyone with her. She finds a burnt-out husk of a house underneath the illusion, threatening to attract too much attention if she were to reveal it to the public. Toby calls Quentin to make sure the phone would still work inside the spell, then ventures on inside alone. Inside the decrepit house, Toby scents the air deeply and gets a faint trace of rowan wood and cold air over the sea; the signature of the False Queen of the Mists. Toby calls Walther to ask him to call his sister Marlis in the Kingdom of Silences, and find out whether the sleepers imprisoned during the events of A Red-Rose Chain are still there. Following the scent, Toby proceeds to the back of the house, where she finds a bed containing a sleeping Gillian. Before she can proceed farther, Walther calls back and confirms that the False Queen still seems to be asleep in Silences. Toby tells Walther that Gillian is there, and Walther grows suspicious of the scene, and asks Toby to bleed in order to clear her mind. Reluctantly, Toby does so, breaking the illusion that masked an emaciated Baobhan Sith, who immediately attacks. During the struggle to fight the creature off, Toby drops and steps on her cell phone, leaving her cut off from help until Tybalt appears on the scene to aid in the fight. Working together, Toby and Tybalt fight the Baobhan Sith, then escape to the Shadow Roads, dragging the Baobhan with them until she lets go, then escaping into Shade's Court of Cats to leave the Baobhan in the darkness. Toby realizes she'd dropped her knife during the fight. Tybalt explains that Raj had lent him his phone, which Quentin had called when Toby had begun screaming. Tybalt also apologizes for having not been there from the beginning, and offers to stay despite his damage. Toby pleads to go back to the house, and Tybalt figures that the Baobhan Sith would have escaped the Shadow Road by now, prioritizing escape over feeding. He also reveals that Baobhan Sith can imitate their victims, implying that she could imitate Toby, and thus giving them a reason to hurry back to May, Quentin, and Madden. Tybalt returns them to the room of the fight, Toby retrieves her knife and broken phone, and they exit the house together under human disguises to be reunited with Quentin, May, Madden, and Walther, who had rushed to the scene after his call with Toby had been suddenly dropped. Toby sends Madden back to Muir Woods to let Arden know about the Baobhan Sith, which had been believed to be extinct in the Mists for years. Rather than continuing to try to follow any false leads, Toby decides to follow up on the note from Jocelyn, alerting Quentin to the possibility that Dean Lorden might be in danger, as Goldengreen is one of the places that Toby 'gave away.' Quentin tries to call Dean and gets no response, making it suddenly urgent that they get there to check on him. Toby, Quentin, May, and Tybalt drive to Goldengreen under a Don't-look-here. Using the Cliffside entrance (with May going first to test it), the gang enters the knowe to find the pixies asleep, and Marcia in the kitchen, awake and baking. She feeds Toby and confirms that it would be a bad idea for any Thin-blood to learn fae-repelling tricks, lest they become a bigger target for the prejudices against Thin-bloods. Thus, Jocelyn is likely not the one who made the sachets. Quentin checks on Dean, confirms his safety, and the group moves along. Toby stops by Cliff and Miranda's house to update their contact information, as her dead phone was the only one with Cliff's number. With May at her side and Quentin and Tybalt in the car, Toby is met at the front door by Miranda. She lets them in and explains that Cliff is at the police station, then demands to know who May is, since she isn't actually Toby's sister. Toby plays it off convincingly, and Miranda leads the way to the kitchen to get a pen and paper. Toby spies an herb garden which contains every ingredient of the sachets, which Toby then confronts her about. Miranda becomes upset and fights with Toby about who is Gillian's mother, and goes for a knife. Toby stops her, takes a poisoned thorn to the arm, and shrugs off the poison. May grabs Miranda's purse to disarm her. Miranda admits that she is not who she appears to be. She is an ancient human from Scotland named Janet, who broke Maeve's last ride, and was cursed by Maeve to live forever. She is also the mother of Amandine, making her Toby's grandmother, and Gillian's great-grandmother. May realizes that the familiar face is actually who she'd thought she was, rather than a coincidence. Miranda/Janet apologizes for not making room for Toby in Gillian's life once Toby returned from the pond. She also reveals that Berkeley is an un-ruled fiefdom due to the original arrangement with Oberon. Toby asks whether the hidden courtyard belongs to Janet, and Janet confirms that the courtyard is where she disappears to for a couple decades when her lack of aging becomes suspicious. Toby realizes that whoever left the trail to the courtyard may be targeting Janet, and insists that she evacuate for the sake of Cliff's safety. Janet eventually agrees, and leaves a note for Cliff, then climbs into Toby's car. For protection and answers, Toby takes Janet to the Luidaeg. The Luidaeg reluctantly invites them in to get them off the streets for a conversation. Toby inquires after Poppy, who is asleep. The Luidaeg tells the story of Janet and Tam Lin, and accuses Janet of breaking Faerie 500 years ago. Despite this, Toby asks the Luidaeg to protect Janet. The Luidaeg dispels the illusions over the group, revealing the blood from Toby's fight with Janet. She insists on making a sandwich for Toby while Janet tells her own side of the story. Janet reveals that the instructions for how to break the ride came from Eira Rosynhwyr. Toby asks whether the Luidaeg could help find Gillian, but she is already too far in debt to be able to add to it. Toby accepts this, and reveals to everyone that she had smelled the False Queen's magic, and that Gillian is probably being held in the old knowe that Toby had found for the Queen. Toby asks the Luidaeg to promise to protect Janet, and she reluctantly agrees. While driving to the old abandoned knowe, Toby asks Tybalt whether he can access the deeper parts of it through the Court of Cats. He admits that he can, and the group splits up- Quentin and May go in the front entrance as a distraction, while Toby and Tybalt sneak in through the back. While traveling through the Shadow Roads, Toby and Tybalt are attacked by the Baobhan Sith, who had not escaped after all. The Baobhan gets more of Toby's blood, then Tybalt tackles the Baobhan away from her. Tybalt scoops Toby up and escapes to the Court of Cats/the back of the False Queen's knowe. Toby appeals to the knowe, which seems to work - a door swings open, and appears to be a shortcut to a kitchen, where Toby grabs a turkey leg for sustenance. Letting the knowe lead them, Toby and Tybalt wander through the halls until they find the main throne room. Toby discovers that May and Quentin had already arrived and been Elf-shot. The False Queen strikes Gillian, and Toby rushes to attack. The Queen demands that Toby restore her stolen Siren blood, and when Toby says it's impossible, the Queen stabs Gillian with Elf-shot, ensuring her death unless Toby is somehow able to restore her fae blood, thus proving she could do the same for the Queen. Tybalt catches Gillian's body, and Toby asks him to take Gillian to the Luidaeg to see if she can save Gillian's life, then to fetch Dianda Lorden for backup. He leaves through the Shadow Roads with Gillian in his arms. The False Queen takes this as a sign that Toby would rather uphold her 'lie' and let her daughter die, than to restore the lost Siren blood. Toby charges to attack the Queen, but stops when the Queen points out that Toby still has no idea who woke her and smuggled her out of the kingdom of Silences. As the Queen continues to taunt, Toby rushes her. Jocelyn stabs Toby with her own sword and reveals that her mother had been one of Devin's kids, Tracy Wilson. Jocelyn and the False Queen team up on Toby, beating her down and stabbing her with a Folletti blade until Tybalt returns to the scene, dragging the Baobhan Sith out of the Shadow Roads behind him. The Baobhan attacks the False Queen while Jocelyn pleads with Toby to change her blood, and reveals that the one who woke the Queen was Dugan Harrow. Tybalt saves Toby from Jocelyn's threat, and Toby stops him from killing Jocelyn in anger, and asks him to take the Folletti blade from her back, as she is still too far human to be able to touch it. The Baobhan Sith steps out from where she'd left the False Queen alive, and now sentient again after feeding enough, introduces herself as Kennis. She calls for a truce, which Toby grants. Kennis apologizes for her actions under the influence of hunger, and Toby starts to catch her up on what had happened in the recent past. Toby refuses Tybalt to tell her the result of Gillian's fate, lest she fall apart upon hearing it. She retrieves Quentin's phone from his pocket and uses it to call Shadowed Hills, reaching Etienne and asking him to retrieve Sylvester Torquill so he can meet her in the old Queen's knowe. Next, she calls Walther to ask him for some Elf-shot cure, promising Tybalt will come to pick it up. Dianda, Patrick Lorden, and their army arrive on the scene as backup, and aid in imprisoning the False Queen and Jocelyn. Sylvester and Etienne also arrive, and Toby embraces Sylvester for comfort. Sylvester promises to guard the scene while Toby goes to the Luidaeg to find out what had happened with Gillian. Tybalt arrives with Toby through the Shadow Roads into the living room of the Luidaeg's apartment, made possible after the sea witch had offered to open the wards to him. The Luidaeg tells Toby that Gillian is alive, shortly after which Toby goes into shock and the Luidaeg shoos Tybalt off to get the elf-shot cure. The Luidaeg gives Toby a potion to help her heal from her injuries, which also paralyzes Toby long enough to have a whole conversation without her running off. The Luidaeg explains that in order to save Gillian's life, she had to remove the mortality from her blood. She did so by wrapping Gillian in Firtha's skin, turning Gillian into a Selkie. The elf-shot is still in her blood, however, so Gillian must remain wrapped in the skin for the 100 years it will take for the poison to wear off, lest she become human again and start to die all over again. After letting Toby recover a little more, she takes her to see Gillian, who is just waking up. Gillian becomes upset at the fantastical elements forcing their way into her reality, and Toby tries to break it to her easily that she is no longer human. She assures Gillian that she will be able to eventually return to her life, and that Miranda is there and knows about the Fae. Toby asks Gillian whether there had been any shady characters at her residence, and Gillian confirms Jocelyn's "new boyfriend," whose description matches that of Dugan. Gillian thanks Toby for saving her life, without knowing the meaning behind the words. Toby leaves to let Miranda take over, and goes back downstairs to meet back up with Tybalt. He fills in Toby on everyone's status; everyone is back at Muir Woods, where the two of them go through the Shadow Roads to meet up with Arden. As they walk through the woods to the knowe, escorted once again by pixies, Tybalt apologizes again for leaving Toby when he'd been hurting. Greeted again by Lowri, Toby interrogates her about Dugan. Lowri confirms that Dugan was an un-landed Baron, who would lord his title over others. She tells the story of how the False Queen had tortured Dugan into compliance by leaving him in the iron-soaked dungeon for a fortnight. Escorted through the knowe, Toby and Tybalt proceed forward to meet with Arden, and to reunite with Madden, May, and Quentin. Toby confirms for them that Gillian is alive, and now a part of faerie. Before she can continue to explain, one of the servants jumps out from under an illusion, and reveals himself to be Dugan. He accuses Toby of being a liar, says she'll fix things now, grabs Nolan by the neck, and uses a potion to teleport the two of them away, leaving behind a scent trace of Juniper sap and Quince - The magic of Gilad Windermere. Arden offers herself up to Toby in order to find Nolan. Toby cuts Arden with her knife, and uses her blood to follow the trail left behind by Dugan, opening a portal back to the False Queen's knowe with Tybalt following behind her. Toby sends Tybalt back to Muir Woods to get the rest of Arden's forces. Toby steps out of the mist to play distraction, and Dugan threatens Nolan's life with an iron knife, demanding once again that Toby return the Siren blood to the False Queen. Arden and her backup arrive on the scene, and Dugan drops Nolan and attempts suicide with the iron knife. Toby rushes to save his life, gets a taste of his blood, and discovers that the traps - Janet's courtyard and Kennis' nest - were the False Queen's idea to grind Toby down and make her compliant. Toby cries into Tybalt's shoulder. Later that day, Tybalt stays at home with Raj while Toby visits Cliff to advise him of Gillian's cover story, explaining a mortal version of why Gillian is alive but not yet there, and why Miranda is gone. She spins a story of the reason for Gillian's second disappearance, playing it off as a college prank gone wrong. As payment for the job of finding Gillian, Toby demands that Cliff allow her to be a part of Gillian's life, and he reluctantly agrees to try. On the way back, May advises Toby on how to aid Tybalt in his healing process. With Raj back holding the throne in the Court of Cats, Tybalt greets Toby and May at home with a basket full of sandwiches, and insists that October eat the brunt of them. Back at Muir Woods, Arden portals Toby, Tybalt, Quentin, and Madden to the Kingdom of Silences where Siwan Yates greets them, and they discover that the False Queen still sleeping there is a constructed illusion made of dead leaves and flowers and a pumpkin, constructed to last for years. Toby confirms that King Rhys is still there and still asleep, and guesses as to Dugan's motivations for his actions. Marlis covers for Tybalt, Quentin, and Toby while the three of them venture out into the mortal world of Portland. Quentin parts ways to get doughnuts for Jazz, while Toby and Tybalt go to visit Jolgeir, who ushers them into the Court of Whispering Cats. Tybalt admits his mental trauma, and asks Joe's permission for his Princess daughter, Ginevra, to come hold Tybalt's throne while Tybalt completes his recovery and Raj completes his training. Joe leaves the decision up to his daughter. Characters, Fae Types, Places * Kingdom of the Mists * Toby Daye * Queen of the Mists * May Daye - Former Night-haunt, Fetch * Madden * Walther Davies * Bridget Ames * Gillian Locations * UC Berkeley Quotes Back Cover Text Things are not okay. In the aftermath of Amandine's latest betrayal, October "Toby" Daye's fragile self-made family is on the verge of coming apart at the seams. Jazz can't sleep, Sylvester doesn't want to see her, and worst of all, Tybalt has withdrawn from her entirely, retreating into the Court of Cats as he tries to recover from his abduction. Toby is floundering, unable to help the people she loves most heal. She needs a distraction. She needs a quest. What she doesn't need is the abduction of her estranged human daughter, Gillian. What she doesn't need is to be accused of kidnapping her own child by her ex-boyfriend and his new wife, who seems to be harboring secrets of her own. There's no question of whether she'll take the case. The only question is whether she's emotionally prepared to survive it. Signs of Faerie's involvement are everywhere, and it's going to take all Toby's nerve and all her allies to get her through this web of old secrets, older hatreds, and new deceits. If she can't find Gillian before time runs out, her own child will pay the price. Two questions remain: Who in Faerie remembered Gillian existed? And what do they stand to gain? No matter how this ends, Toby's life will never be the same. Book Chapter References Trivia * It is revealed that the Luidaeg can turn an ordinary human - with no hint of Faerie in their blood - into a Selkie. * Humans who have had their fae blood removed are revealed to have the "ghosts" of their former magical signature in their blood, as described by Toby when she tasted Gillian's blood. * Marshwater charms can be severe enough to induce an allergic reaction to Fae, as revealed by Walther. * It is revealed here that Jolgeir's middle daughter Ginerva has the magic of a Cait Sidhe Princess after Toby rebalanced her blood in between A Rose-Red Chain and Once Broken Faith. See Also * List of October Daye books * Faeries * List of Fae Types * Firstborn * List of Firstborn * List of Faerie Kingdoms, Duchys, Realms * Big Three * Faerie External References Category:Books Category:Novel